Complaints about prostitution have helped police put a dent in one Reading neighborhood’s illegal sex trade.<\/p>\n
Investigators said the city’s prostitution problem has been an ongoing issue in certain neighborhoods, so RPD vice officers went undercover Monday night in the area of South Eighth and Chestnut, the 500 and 600 blocks of Chestnut and the 400 and 500 blocks of Franklin streets.<\/p>\n
“I see girls walking up and down the street basically getting in cars all day long. It causes a lot of traffic in our neighborhoods that don’t need to be here,” said Walter Fackler, a resident of the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Between 9 and 11:30 p.m., officers said they arrested eight women, identified as Roxann Mulhearn, Rachael Middleton, Teresa Delgado-Rodriguez, Tyler Baxter Obas, Maria Davila, Eva DeJesus, Elizabeth Lopez and Holly Wagner. Investigators said the women agreed to perform sex acts in exchange for money.<\/p>\n
“You can pretty much tell who’s working the corners and who’s not,” said Justin Barbera, a neighborhood resident. “I think they need to get some morals and get some standards or clean up their lives a little bit.”<\/p>\n
The suspects, unable to post bail, were committed to the Berks County Jail.<\/p>\n
According to neighbors, the women tend to sit on benches and hang out in the area of the Reading Public Library at South Fifth and Franklin streets.<\/p>\n
Police told 69 News they believe drugs are involved. On Tuesday, used drug baggies could be seen on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
“It brings a negative impact to the city that we’re trying to make a better place,” said Sean Moretti, who sits on the board of directors for the Reading Main Street Program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moretti said he’s seen the illegal activity outside his office on South Fifth Street, and now he’s praising the police.<\/p>\n
“We call and complain and I’m glad they’ve done something about it,” Moretti said.<\/p>\n
Police said they periodically conduct such stings, but this one in particular was prompted by several complaints from people who live in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
“I give them a thumbs up, it needs to be stopped because you hear it all the time,” said Linda Guldin, who lives in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Investigators said three of the women — Middleton, Delgado-Rodriguez and Baxter Obas — violated their parole.<\/p>\n
Now, all eight women are facing prostitution related charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Complaints about prostitution have helped police put a dent in one Reading neighborhood’s illegal sex trade. Investigators said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[279,139,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-203213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks","tag-news","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}